Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur have made a career of being coolspotters and curators, first with their beloved and bygone retail shop Of a Kind, then their “A Thing or Two” newsletter and companion podcast. Romance, they believe, is for the people, and they’re hoping their latest venture, 831 Stories, can facilitate literary meet-cutes and bring the finest smut to the thirsting masses, with merch to match.

So they’re launching a romance-focused imprint? Not quite, they insist. “We are an entertainment company with books at the foundation,” Cerulo tells Vanity Fair when she and Mazur meet me at a West Village café.

If that characterization sounds like it’s been carefully constructed, that’s because the vision for 831 is more expansive than just putting out books. As Mazur puts it, romance fans “have the sort of force and engagement and enthusiasm of every other fandom, [so] where is the Marvel of romance fans and where is the Bravo of romance fans and where is the WNBA of romance fans? That just doesn’t really exist. We got really excited to think about what would it look like if there was something in the space that really just existed to serve romance fandom.”

With 831—a nod to late-’90s pager code for “I love you,” with its eight letters, three words, and one meaning—Cerulo and Mazur will publish six books by different authors in their first year, starting with Big Fan, in which a politico forms a connection with her childhood boy band crush, by Alexandra Romanoff on September 10, followed by A.C. Robinson's Hardly Strangers. Beyond the page, 831 will offer clever merchandise like hats embroidered with classic romantic tropes (“enemies to lovers”), in-person events for readers, and bonuses, such as a recording of an original song from Big Fan.

In the romantic fiction space, Cerulo and Mazur saw a fan base with a bottomless and wide-ranging appetite, with 2015 Nielsen data showing that of polled romance book buyers, 15 percent bought a new title at least once a week, and nearly half said that they read romance every week. By contrast, a YouGov poll found that 46 percent of Americans surveyed didn’t finish a single book in 2023, of any genre. Romance readers are a social community too: Half of readers were willing to pick up new-to-them authors, Nielsen found, especially when recommended by another romance author or fan they already liked. While the publishing industry wrings its hands over profit sheets, romance revenue is only going up. It’s the best-selling genre in books by far (see also Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us series published by Atria Books, which has made a long-term home on the bestseller list), and Publisher’s Weekly data via BookScan showed that in 2022 romance books had a year-over-year sales leap of a whopping 52.4 percent.

There was, however, a perception problem. Cerulo and Mazur saw a challenge: How could they strip the label of guilty pleasure from the joyful experience of reading romance, and make it just…pleasure? The locations of romance-only bookstore the Ripped Bodice serve as a sort of clubhouse for fans on either coast, but what if there was a way to make being a romance fan a lifestyle—à la A24’s many merch collaborations, or a playlist you can dance to? What could they do to take that most vulnerable and coveted of states—being in love—and make it cool?

The two are relatively new enthusiasts of the genre, snagging a few books based on TikTok recommendations as a balm in early 2020, then comparing notes on their growing stacks of well-thumbed happily-ever-afters while the world seemed like it really might be ending. They didn’t get into romance novels intending to start a business, they just wanted to feel okay, then got addicted.

Today, Cerulo and Mazur want to be ambassadors for romance as “a force for good,” serving the 30-million-plus readers of the genre, inviting people to own their passions and sexuality and enthusiasm, using the pages to show readers characters confronting some real-world thorns, with the promise that it’ll all turn out okay in that happily ever after. They want to help the world love love. It’s a hearts and minds campaign in the truest sense.

“What does it mean and what does it say about us that it took us until…our mid-30s to discover and really embrace these books, when we are people who would self-identify as huge readers our entire lives, who could have been like, ‘Oh no, I don’t need romance,’” Cerulo muses. “The internalized misogyny of that! These books, when we were growing up in the ’90s, were sold at the grocery store and had a very specific bare-chested aesthetic, and were always presented by the broader culture as books for people who don’t read books. There’s this quote: ‘This is the only genre that you can read and people will think you’re dumber for reading it.’ Which is brutal.”

“Meanwhile,” Mazur says, “we are getting so much out of these books and just enjoying the shit out of ourselves, having a great time, but then also being like, I learned so much from this about—you name it—mental health, greed, social justice, whatever it is.” There’s more to it than steamy sex.

One of those books served as something of a case study: Robinne Lee’s The Idea of You (Macmillan), the runaway hit that was recently adapted into a movie starring Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway. Loyal fans of the story were arranging get-togethers with like-minded readers and even designing their own merch for the film’s fictional boy band, August Moon.

“It was just fascinating to see the level of immersion that they were creating for themselves,” Mazur says.

Cerulo cuts in: “A company that was rooted in books but then was giving all of those other touch points to readers who were like, ‘Yeah, I do want to listen to the spin-off.’ Or, ‘I do want to wear the T-shirt that is in this book.’”

And who better to provide that service than two expert lifestyle curators, trusted voices known for their impeccable taste, who had recently fallen head-over-heels with the genre themselves?

831 plans to publish six books by different authors in their first year—distributed by Simon & Schuster and produced by Author’s Equity, with Cerulo and Mazur serving as big-picture fairy godmothers to the whole operation—and another 12 the next year. At least for now, stories in the planned interconnected 831 universe will be set in contemporary times (though there’s an idea for a historical romance set in the 1990s, pause to wipe your tears and pop a Tylenol) and won’t have supernatural elements. No “she was a ghost all along?!” plot twists, with apologies to Nicholas Sparks. Plots will feature adult women whose professional success will not depend upon their relationship status.

“The rest of her life cannot hinge on this relationship,” Cerulo says. “We really like the idea of self-actualized female main characters. It’s just nice to see that in the world.”

And there’ll be on-page sex.

“It’s core,” Cerulo says of smut. “We talked to a writer at some point who was like, ‘I would rather lie down in traffic than fade to black,’ and I was like, ‘Yes, come sit here, sit with me.’”

As their output grows so will the range of topics they can cover. Mazur was surprised by the beating heart that she found under romance’s heaving bosom, noting the diverse characters, real-life situations, and varied experiences on the page, along with the fact that, yeah, “some of them are really filthy.” (An understatement.)

Representation is essential to the genre: The books aren’t just for older readers; those curious younger bookworms swiping from their parents’ shelves are very much on Cerulo’s and Mazur’s minds as well. Romantic fiction is a staging ground for what these readers will find hot in the future. Books may set expectations for how they will and should be treated in real-life intimacy. Fiction can present what kinds of people are eligible love interests. Authors like Helen Hoang have set love stories around characters who are on the autism spectrum; Talia Hibbert introduces readers to leads with chronic pain, who are neurodivergent; Emily Henry’s stars grapple with anxiety and more; Jasmine Guillory’s dialogue contains specific conversations about the complexities of interracial relationships and dressing a non-sample-size body. Readers might know these people or be these people, and it could be a lightbulb moment to see these traits in someone who has sexual desires and is desirable themselves—in a best-selling book, no less.

Design is also essential in 831’s strategy to reframe romance, their book covers notably lacking Fabio-esque oiled-up beefcakes or the candy-colored illustrated couples that have become popular lately. Instead, each book will have a simple color-blocked cover, with different hues for each title, invoking the Penguin Classics collection’s distinctive minimalist aesthetic and horizontal band. Big Fan is checkered pink and red, giving a first impression that’s more design-based than steamy, allowing readers to feel more comfortable carrying the physical book in public.

Months before ARCs of Big Fan even went out, the brand’s trope hats began quietly appearing on Instagram, worn by select romance enthusiasts. A tasteful yet eye-catching maroon ball cap emblazoned with “enemies to lovers” inspires conversation—as does one that reads “fake relationship.”

Relationship tropes are intrinsic to the genre. Mazur’s favorite is “celebrity-normal person,” like Elissa Sussman’s journalist–movie star story Funny You Should Ask or Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s commoner-royalty series beginning with The Royal We (this is also Big Fan’s trope of choice), while Cerulo has “a soft spot” for second-chance romances.

“One of the delightful things about romance is that when people discover it, they’re like, Oh, I like reading,” Cerulo says. “Reading is fun.”

There’s the old saying that it’s about the journey, not the destination, but in romance novels, it’s about both. We live in an uncertain world, but we know that in these books, at least, we can be absolutely certain of a happy ending after a few roadblocks. Cerulo and Mazur may have begun reading romance during lockdown, but readers don’t need a pandemic-level crisis to seek out a little extra love.

“You pick up [a romance novel] and you know that there's going to be a piece of joy in it for you and a comfort level in it,” Mazur says. “You’re going to be taken care of. I always know I’m going to feel safe within the constraints of this book.”